The death toll from Tragic storm ETA In Central America, it rose on Friday after the Guatemalan army reached a remote mountain village where torrential rains caused devastating mudslides, killing nearly 100 people.
Many of the dead were buried in their homes in the remote village of Coija in the central Alta Verapaz region, where mudslides swallowed up about 150 homes, said Army spokesman Robin Teles.
The Guatemalan President, Alejandro Giamatti, indicated that the death toll could rise even more, as the number of dead and missing in Coega is estimated at about 150.
One of the deadliest storms to hit Central America in yearsOn Friday, ETA dumped more torrential rain across large parts of Central America, and the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) warned of continuing “catastrophic floods” in the area.
Rescue operations across Honduras Guatemala was slowed down by destroyed roads and bridges, forcing authorities to enlist in the army and use helicopters and speedboats to rescue people stranded on their rooftops.
ETA then caused havoc In Nicaragua as a Category 4 hurricane On Tuesday, with winds of 150 mph (241 km / h) before weakening to a tropical depression and unleashing torrential rains in Honduras and Guatemala
“This is the worst storm in Honduras in decades.” Mark Connolly, UNICEF Representative in Honduras, who estimated that some 1.5 million children will be affected by ETA, said, “The damage will undoubtedly be great.”
Giamatti added earlier that bad weather was hampering the rescue efforts, which were further limited by the presence of only one helicopter for the mission. We have a lot of people trapped [whom] We were unable to reach. “
Eight more people were killed in Honduras, where Max Gonzalez, Minister of the National Risk Management System (Sinager), said about 4,000 people had been rescued, but many others remained trapped on the roofs of their homes.
“We have been without food for two days … waiting to be evacuated,” William Santos, sheltering atop a banana packing plant housing about 300 people in northern Honduras, told Reuters.
Across vast swaths of Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and Costa Rica, high winds and torrential rains destroyed hundreds, if not thousands, of homes, forcing people to take shelter in shelters.
Two artisanal miners were killed in Nicaragua while in southern Costa Rica, officials said a landslide killed two people in a house: a Costa Rican woman and an American man.
Authorities said that near the Costa Rican border in the Cheriki department of Panama, five people – including three children – died in the floods.
The commission said that the eye of the storm on Friday morning was on the edge of the Belize coast heading to the Caribbean Sea, to chart a path to Cuba and Florida this weekend.
She also said that Eta’s remains would continue to hit parts of Central America with catastrophic, life-threatening floods and flooding of rivers, and added that flash floods and river flows were also possible through Jamaica, southeast Mexico, the Cayman Islands and western Cuba.
